Holders Stade Francais off the mark in Challenge Cup

There’s no easy games this year, you just have to throw in new talent and see whether they sink or swim.

Agree it didn’t get better at all when Bower came on

It is a real worry for the wallabies although tempered somewhat by the fact they can cobble together a decent starting pack

It’s the depth off the bench which is a worry

With guys like Skelton pushing behind it should help

The Brumbies are a shining light and won the set piece battle against the lightweight Canes tight five

Even the great Lomax looked mortal without any help from the lightweight Numia, young hooker and second rate locks

Indeed I would suggest Kirk thinks along those lines as well, I’ve heard it was something between the two if it wasn’t his family reason.

It is for New Zealand Nick, its a limitation on them I suppose, they really do (despite the team obviously trying to uphold 100% win ratio) target every four years. The World Cup. They simply don’t have the money to do otherwise I would suggest.

That means players have to be let guy while they are still no1 (not that that is Mo’unga’s situation, Barrett was still no1 when he left/decided to).

Rassie was still putting his own neck on the line with such a huge change.

The logistics of getting groups together with variable discharge from their clubs, and strengthening the national culture to the point where it becomes desirable to play for country, were very challenging.

No guarantee it would work as you seem to be implying, ay more than the move north was guaranteed to succeed.

Not that you should blame those two national bodies, it was stupid fans that kept crying about how bad a format/comp SR was that caused them to act.

Good to hear, things were always going to get better, the Sunwolves were the only team that needed changing (basically selling to non Japanese multinational company to pump their own millions into).

And now theres UAE or the likes money who wanted to give half a billion to host a few of this new Nations Cup games next year. Oh you’re talking about the one that was going to be hosted in global mega cities like the US? So they have given further insights to it? Like I said SA need to get in charge of this and start a Europe Middle East Africa (EMEA) league or else the only part of the future you guys will benefit from progress is more domestic players will have professional opportunities elsewhere in the world. Great for the prospect of underprivileged South Africans that rely on sport for a living, but missing out on every other opportunity.

I don’t trust ‘causal links’ that need a certain type of proof in any case. Excuse for slow thinking! Correlation is far more accurate.

Backs against them he wall - I remember a certain Maa Nonu like that

In two weeks we won’t really care as the focus is on the ABs but this next two weeks will tell us who will stand up

Speaking of which, you must have missed the game on the weekend. Beauden was absolutely outstanding

If he wasn’t playing the Blues would’ve lost

He also bailed the ABs out against England last year

DMac wasn’t bad so it’s good signs and yes Ruben Love is a lovely surprise at 10 - but he won’t be thrown in against the French to start.